Tag: Steel Broadfork

If you desire a tool that makes aeration of your garden soil easier and faster, a tool that is durable and simple to maintain, then the steel broadfork gardening tool is what you need. Instead of talking only about it being light-weighted, selling at an affordable price, its tines being adjustable, and it guarantees of quality, we would have a closer look at its other practical advantages below.

Practical benefits of the broadfork garden tool

Deeper reach: with a motor operated rototiller, one can only get to about 4 to 6 inches of the topsoil surface. However, the tines of a steel broadfork give the possibility of getting to about 10 to 16 inches, which apparently is way deeper and gives plants greater chances to grow deeper. If you plan to grow crops with deep roots, now you can be sure that during dry spells, your plants would easily reach water as well as soil nutrients that are located far in the soil.

No delay in planting: As a gardener, one must have experienced some moments when it becomes not ideal to use the motor operated rototiller because it wouldn’t stop raining. This is because using the rototiller on wet soil would just create little bricks that the root of plants cannot penetrate, which ruins the structure of the soil. Well, how long can we wait for the rain to stop before we can go on with our gardening process? The wait is over once there’s a broadfork around.

Irrespective of the soil being dry or wet, the broadfork is ideal because it does not require completely mixing and chopping the soil as the rototiller does.

Rhizosphere preservation: As agriculture enters a new era, we get a better understanding of measuring the health of the soil – not just the nutrients sum is considered, the population and type of microorganism that it holds is also in question. We have observed that rhizosphere is not protected by tillage, which is why most commercial farmers began to switch to a system without tillage. This way, the topsoil get preserved and there would be little need to apply manure when planting into a cover crop that was killed by winter or rolled down. The broadfork helps maintain the rhizosphere by keeping the band of the soil that holds the secretions of plants, their roots and related microorganism.

Keep weeds away from the soil surface: As it is known that the seeds of weeds can lay peacefully in the soil for ages till they get in contact with the light of day, which helps in their germination. The work of a motor operated rototiller involves mixing the soil as it aerates and this helps the weed seeds to get access to the surface of the soil, which means they will germinate. However, the broadfork does not mix the soil when in use, which means that weed seeds don’t stand a chance. Imagine how much time is spent on weeding the garden; this can be reduced when the steel broadfork is used.

The advantages of using a broadfork are countless. What other reasons do you need to consider using the broadfork? You can cut the harvest time for sweet potatoes or carrots in half using a broadfork instead of a spading fork.